Byron’s Social Doctrine 39
lions who found in him the cause of their oppression.
With the exception of the last eight cantos of Don Juan,
The Vision of Judgment was Byron’s last great work. AU that
he had to say in earlier writings, however, is summed up in
Don Juan, which is one of the best satires in our language.
In this poem Byron attacks the faults of mankind: hypocrisy,
cant, pride, the vanity of glory, the evils of needless war-
fare; and in an unusually subtle yet significant manner, he
returns to his consistent theme—freedom from oppression.
Byron changes his tactics in these stanzas. Formerly, he
had always viewed the situation from the standpoint of the
oppressed. Now he places Don Juan, not with the masses, but
in the company of these who are responsible for oppression.
Juan first fights in the Russian Army under Suvoroff in the
siege of Ismail. He then proceeds to the Russian Court at
Moscow, where he becomes a favorite of Empress Catherine.
From there he goes, as Catherine’s ambassador, to England
and mingles with the nobility and court periphery. There,
amid the petty intrigues and trivial happenings of English
high society, the poem breaks off.
The poet does not lose sight of his theme in the latter part
of this poem, for he keeps it constantly on the mind of Don
Juan. In order to trace this idea, we must go back to Canto
VIII and the siege of Ismail. Juan fights valiantly in this
bloody battle and is beginning to feel a little of the thirst for
glory which comes to those who wage war successfully,
when he is reined in sharply. He sees two Cossacks, bent on
murdering a ten-year-old Turkish girl. He saves the child as
she tries to hide among the bodies of her parents and friends.
From that time on, Don Juan’s first thought is for the safety
and well-being of his charge. He takes her with him to Rus-
sia, where she serves as a contrast to the pomp of court life.
She goes with him on his journey through the countries of